E2-Wire

An Associated Press investigation finds that the Obama administration is allowing the wind industry to kill golden eagles and other protected species “with impunity.”

The AP probe opens with a story of a Wyoming wind farm that has proven fatal to a golden eagle about once a month. Here’s AP:

Killing these iconic birds is not just an irreplaceable loss for a vulnerable species. It’s also a federal crime, a charge that the Obama administration has used to prosecute oil companies when birds drown in their waste pits, and power companies when birds are electrocuted by their power lines.

But the administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind-energy company, even those that flout the law repeatedly. Instead, the government is shielding the industry from liability and helping keep the scope of the deaths secret.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. says the Eagle Ford shale formation in Texas could hold 342 million barrels of oil, writes the Houston Chronicle.

Slate says the United States need to double down on carbon capture and sequestration technology.

Green groups said a Monday federal order allows for a more thorough review for restarting a controversial nuclear power plant in California, The Associated Press notes.

Amory Lovins, a much-cited energy expert, debunks arguments regarding the wealth of newfound U.S. oil for the The Atlantic.

ON TAP TUESDAY: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold the first of three May “forums” on natural gas that could pave the way for legislation.

Tuesday’s session will have more than a dozen speakers, including a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and an array of industry officials. Check out the full list here.

Possibly on tap Tuesday: The Senate will vote as soon as Tuesday on Ernest Moniz, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist who President Obama nominated to run the Energy Department.
 


Moniz, who directs the MIT Energy Initiative, is expected to clear the Senate with bipartisan support. The vote is slated to occur this week, but it’s not clear when, exactly, lawmakers will get around to it.

Possibly on tap Tuesday (or very soon): Groups on both sides of the battle over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, are bracing for the Interior Department to release draft rules governing the practice on public lands any day now.

The federal rules are expected to require drillers to disclose chemicals used during fracking, while also establishing guidelines for well integrity and managing so-called flowback water.

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Officials warned cuts had harmed wildfire management as agencies prepare for a season with "above normal significant fire potential."

The group is under fire from the left for TV ads that back the Keystone XL pipeline and Arctic drilling.

A top biofuel trade group named a new communications director on Monday.

Dawn Schueller Moore joined the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) to lead its press shop, the organization announced Monday. 

Climate change and extreme weather disasters were the main drivers of human displacement worldwide last year, with Hurricane Sandy accounting for most of the forced migration in the United States, according to a report released Monday.

The devastating East Coast storm affected 24 states, forcing 776,000 people out of their homes, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said in its report. Wildfires in the West and Hurricane Isaac also contributed to displacement, the report noted.

“The USA was among the ten countries worldwide with the highest displacement levels in 2012. Months before Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Isaac displaced 60,000 people in August. … Widespread forest fires forced over 39,000 people to evacuate their homes,” the report said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron wants a global standard under which petroleum and mining companies will report their payments to governments, calling it a way to curb corruption in resource-rich nations.

Cameron, who is meeting with President Obama at the White House on Monday, called for the Group of Eight leading industrial nations to work on the effort at its June gathering in Ireland.

The prime minister, in a broader Wall Street Journal column backing free trade, said greater “transparency” must accompany more open global markets.

“[W]e must lift the veil of secrecy that too often lets corrupt corporations and officials in some countries run rings around the law. The G8 must move toward a global common standard for resource-extracting companies to report all payments to governments, and in turn for governments to report those revenues,” Cameron writes.

This week will likely bring a changing of the guard at the Energy Department, while Senate Democrats will also try again to advance a stalled nomination to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
 
The full Senate is slated to vote as early as Tuesday on Ernest Moniz, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist who President Obama nominated to run the Energy Department.
 
Moniz, who directs the MIT Energy Initiative, is expected to clear the Senate with bipartisan support. He would replace former Secretary Steven Chu, who left the Energy Department in April after announcing his decision to resign in early February.
 
Less certain is the path forward for Gina McCarthy, Obama’s choice to run the EPA.

The Los Angeles Times unwraps new research that concludes climate change could threaten many species.

“The study’s authors looked at 50,000 common species. They found that more than half the plants and about a third of the animals could lose about 50% of their range by 2080 if the world continues its current course of rising greenhouse gas emissions,” the Times reports. Read more...